As in chapter 4, the present study included 167 participants (mean age = 19.9; SD = 5.2; range = 17-57) with 27 males (mean age = 19.1; SD = 1.74) and 139 females (mean age = 20.00; SD = 5.62). For the majority of participants (77%) English was the language spoken at home. The majority of participants were born in Australia (60.8%), followed by Asia (31.3%), Europe (3.0%) and other (4.9%). Participants were first year undergraduate psychology students recruited via the University of Melbourne Psychology Department.
The Self Perception/Importance Profile for College Students (Neemann & Harter, 1986) is a measure that taps into eleven domain-specific self-concept dimensions as well as global self-worth. Participants are requested to indicate which of two types of students they are most like and decide whether that description is "sort of true" or "really true" for him or her. A sample item is: "some students feel they are very good at their job but other students worry about whether they can do their job". Subscale reliabilities range from .76 to .92 among normative samples. For each of the domains, there are also parallel items that tap importance/success in each domain. In addition to global self worth, four of the eleven scales were administered for this study; morality, job competence, school competence, and social acceptability. These subscales were selected due to their hypothesized relationship to OCD.
The Padua Inventory - Revised (PI-R, Burns et al., 1996; see chapter 4 for detailed description)
The revised Obsessional Beliefs Questionnaire (OBQ, OCCWG, 2005; see chapter 4 for detailed description)
The student participants completed the questionnaire in a classroom within the department, in groups varying in sizes from three to 22.